Slashdot Mirror
China's Cyber-Militia
D. J. Keenan notes that the cover story of the current issue of National Journal reports in depth on China's cyber-aggression against US targets in the government, military, and business. We have discussed China's actions on numerous occasions over the years. The news in this report is the suggestion that Chinese cyber-attackers may have been involved in major power outages in the US. "Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of US companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to US government officials and computer-security experts..."
"A computer virus" is as close as this article came to the reason power companies are so wide open to any aggressor.
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Are vital parts of power plants connected to The Internet? Why?
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.
Wow, has professional writing ever gone downhill. Ever heard of a period?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It is a long article, but worth reading. The suspicion of Chinese involvement in two major U.S. power outages is extremely worrying. Following are quotes on related aspects.
From now on every instance of government stupidity and incompetence will be blamed on Chinese Hackers. Well, maybe the 13 year old hacker in his parent's basement is finally safe.
The article mentions large scale government, military and industry intrusions. They also mention criminal gangs and others besides China as those responsible.
This is an odd issue that gives neo-conservatives fits. They like trading with China, so they don't like hearing old school anti-Communist and human rights complaints. They place the interests of large American companies above those of American people, so they don't like hearing bad things about Microsoft. This leads to a large scale head in sand act.
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It would be sweet revenge if they suddenly started seeing their government websites reporting "hacked by Tibet"
The computers which control the plant should be physically separated from the computers which are needed/wanted for connection with the internet. Otherwise you are begging for disasters.
What kind of un-patched Windows crap is running the power grid?
Of course the attackers are guilty; but that doesn't excuse foolish security practices. Nevermind bad security on the end-point, or in the software. It seems like the power company, with all its rights-of-way, shouldn't even have to route over the public network. Routing over a private network would provide physical security. Breaking into that requires putting your actual body at the point of attack. Since the power company came before the Internet, I would have thought they had a private network of some kind in place already, or close cooperation with telcos. I guess not.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military
Can they prove that? This sounds like regular old corporate espionage -- nothing unusual or even foreign there. Is xenophobia starting to take hold, or are those statements substantiated? No time to RTFA.
The submitter quotes the most frightening parts of the article and our current "trade partner" China is well positioned to spy. We trust them to make equipment and non free software like Cisco routere has proved itself impossible to check.
Still, most of the hacks are common and anyone could do it. Time and time again we read about autopropagating botnets for Windows and how they cover large parts of the internet. When that system is used on corporate and government desktops, anyone can exploit it.
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...China gets rid of their nuclear weapons.
Till then, they get to do as they please, same as any nuclear-armed country.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner.
The concept of M.A.D. is what is keep the world in one piece, and not a giant puddle of radioactive sludge. Thanks to modern intelligence tech, all countries capable of launching ICBMs are also capable of knowing when OTHER ICBMs are launched, within minutes. If one gets launch, then other countries will launch retaliatory strikes, and eventually, EVERYONE will launch their weapons, hoping to at least destroy the enemy before they are destroyed themselves.
China is a threat to us. They have enough nuclear warheads to pepper every population center with deliciously lethal Uranium goodness, and they can launch theirs five to ten minutes after we launch ours. Considering that an ICBM would take twenty to forty five minutes to travel to its intended target, that's more than enough reaction time. That's why we buy their cheap shit, take their insults and attacks, and let the Communist thing slide.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
This is fantastic news, and I can't thank China enough for these attacks. The fact is, vulnerabilities in our systems exist whether they are under attack or not. These attacks should serve as a wake up call and lead to security being taken much more seriously. Can you imagine if these weaknesses were left open and were exploited by terrorists, or by some country we find ourselves at war with in the future?
I've often scoffed at the seemingly obtuse propaganda used by communist nations in their media, to be fair, usa has plenty propaganda too, but this is just laughable, if you read about the North East blackout, you'll see that a bug in a Unix based system was primarily responsible for the failure of the electricity infrastructure to react when it should have.
Now, if I was a Chinese spy, I'd infiltrate General Electric, install a bug in the operating software responsible for the control of the energy distribution network, wait till those dumb ol americans had got complacent and then, for no strategic advantage whatsoever, cripple their energy distribution network, and then laugh my black communist heart out.
prepare the survey weasels.
The submitter writes as if these things were solid facts written in stone, whereas the fact is that nobody really knows. Sadly, building on what "intelligence" comes out of CIA just isn't feasible, as the arguments for the war in Iraq amply demonstrate. SO, the power outages "may have been caused by hackers" or something; or they may have been caused by something else. We rely heavily on advanced technology, which is a bit like balancing on a knifes edge - it is bound to go wrong from time to time, sometimes massively so, especially when stiff competition makes funding for maintenance less abundant.
Apart from that, it isn't exactly difficult to break in to this kind of system - in the past we have seen hackers walk all over the place where they aren't supposed to have been. If script kiddies can do it, is isn't surprising if higly trained miltary personnel can do it too.
But I sincerely doubt that they would leave lots of traces and clues lying around for the more paranoid factions on slashdot to play with. Script-kiddies, yes, but if you are professional, whether criminal or some foreign government, you don't just blunder stupidly in and trigger alarms, or leave your droppings all over the place.
I can see how this kind of nonsense is politically useful. Hasn't the American public caught on to this yet?
Funnily enough, that's what everyone in Europe was saying in 1913.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.